CSUSM Student Accused of Rigging College Elections
Executive Summary:
Matthew Weaver, a former student at California State University San Marcos, was charged with fraud, access device fraud, and unauthorized access to a computer. Matthew installed 19 key loggers on the university’s computers in order to steal student user names and passwords. Mather then used the identification credentials to rig student elections to become the student president.
CSUSM’s technology center noticed suspicious activity on one of its computer labs, which lead them to discover the key loggers. Mathew Weaver’s arrest came after an 11-month investigation by the university and the FBI. Matthew compromised about 700 student passwords and cast about 480 votes for himself and his friends.
Analysis:
The article did not mention the specific IT controls that CSUSM had in place. It can be inferred that the university does some sort of anomaly monitoring of the computers in their computer labs. If the university has not done so already, the university may also consider addition controls for their public use computers. Some of these controls include:
Wipe the drive and reinstalling a disk image every night so that any software or data placed into the computer during the day will be erased.
Only authorizing the system administrator to download/install programs onto the machine.
Place public computers in an area where they can be physically monitored.
Only allow individuals who are justified, authorized, logged and monitored to use the university computers.
Physically check computers for tampering every night. Look for things like thumb drives and unnecessary Ethernet wires.
Implementing these controls will reduce an attackers ability to install a key logger onto a university computer.
Update: 3/22/2013
Matthew Weaver pled guilty to fraud, access device fraud, and unauthorized access to a computer. Matthew faces 22 to 33 months in federal prison. Article about update
CSUSM Student Accused of Rigging College Elections
Executive Summary:
Matthew Weaver, a former student at California State University San Marcos, was charged with fraud, access device fraud, and unauthorized access to a computer. Matthew installed 19 key loggers on the university’s computers in order to steal student user names and passwords. Mather then used the identification credentials to rig student elections to become the student president.
CSUSM’s technology center noticed suspicious activity on one of its computer labs, which lead them to discover the key loggers. Mathew Weaver’s arrest came after an 11-month investigation by the university and the FBI. Matthew compromised about 700 student passwords and cast about 480 votes for himself and his friends.
Analysis:
The article did not mention the specific IT controls that CSUSM had in place. It can be inferred that the university does some sort of anomaly monitoring of the computers in their computer labs. If the university has not done so already, the university may also consider addition controls for their public use computers. Some of these controls include:
Implementing these controls will reduce an attackers ability to install a key logger onto a university computer.
Update: 3/22/2013
Matthew Weaver pled guilty to fraud, access device fraud, and unauthorized access to a computer. Matthew faces 22 to 33 months in federal prison.
Article about update